Roger Scruton - MIT Technology Review http://www.technologyreview.com/stream/26156/?sort=recent
enThe Trouble with Knowledgehttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/407806/the-trouble-with-knowledge/
<p>Technology that alters human nature will upset our inherited moral categories, argues one of Britain’s most esteemed philosophers. In a posthuman future, he asks, how will our children and grandchildren know right from wrong?</p><p>In his novel <em>Erewhon</em>, published in 1872, Samuel Butler describes an imagi­nary country (a “nowhere”) in which all machines are forbidden. The inhabitants had once availed themselves of watches, steam engines, mechanical pumps and hoists, and all the other devices that could be admired in the great exhibitions of Victorian England. ¶ But unlike Butler’s Victorian contemporaries, they had perceived the terrible danger that these things represented. Machines, they realized, were always improving. Never for one moment did they take a step backwards into imperfections that they had surpassed. Always, the next machine was better, more versatile, and more fully adapted to its uses than the last. </p>Tue, 01 May 2007 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/407806/the-trouble-with-knowledge/The Unobservable Mindhttp://www.technologyreview.com/review/403673/the-unobservable-mind/
<p>One of Britain’s leading philosophers is skeptical that neurobiology can tell us anything about self-consciousness.</p><p></p>Tue, 01 Feb 2005 05:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/review/403673/the-unobservable-mind/